Narrative as a linguistic rule: Fyodor Dostoyevski and Karl Barth
✍ Scribed by Robert A. Krieg
- Book ID
- 104636734
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Year
- 1977
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 856 KB
- Volume
- 8
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0020-7047
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Imagine the following scene. You are busy preparing a lecture when the telephone rings. The party on the other end is considering a student for a job, and she has mentioned you as a reference. After describing the available position, the employer asks, "What kind of person is Miss R.? Does she possess qualities suitable for this responsibility?" After a moment's thought you say, "Well, Miss R. is quite intelligent. She is a good person, and courageous in her own right." The inquirer, anxious to know the applicant better, asks, "What do you mean? Can you be more explicit?" You are momentarily stumped, how should you proceed? You want to describe the person in such a way that you will communicate a sense of that individual's qualities. My suggestion is that at this point you will turn to the category story.
Recent studies on the structure of narrative remind us that stories show what cannot be directly said? That is, stories draw their readers (or listeners) into a world. They afford a fresh angle on reality; they offer alternative perceptions of oneself. While I concur with these appraisals, I also judge that more must be said. We turn to narratives not only when we want to introduce a new view of life, we also rely on them for quite ordinary purposes. Thus 1 want to explore one of the everyday roles of story--a role which aligns with the type of situation depicted above.
Scrutiny of our talk about persons reveals that discourse of this sort often turns on narrative. This dependence is evident when we want to locate another's qualities. It is the stories of a person's deeds which determine what attributes we ascribe to that individual. In our talk about persons a certain kind of story serves as a linguistic rule which governs our use of some predicate expressions. And since it does this, the narrative shapes our notions of personal properties On the function of "narrative," especially as it relates to matters theological, see: Sallie McFague TeSelle, Speaking in Parables (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975). Background to Kelsey's work is indirectly provided by Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse oJ Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974).